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Combative Union Leader Steps From the Shadows

Richard Trumka is expected to easily win election as A.F.L.-C.I.O. president at the federations convention in September.Credit
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Richard Trumka, the secretary-treasurer of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., can boast of something unusual for a labor leader — one of his videos has more than 535,000 hits on YouTube.

That video shows Mr. Trumka giving a stemwinder of a speech at a steel workers’ convention last year, telling union members it would be wrong — and stupid — to vote against Barack Obama because of his race.

“There’s no evil that’s inflicted more pain and more suffering than racism — and it’s something we in the labor movement have a special responsibility to challenge,” Mr. Trumka said. “It’s our special responsibility because we know, better than anyone else, how racism is used to divide working people.”

Mr. Trumka’s friends often say that speech lifted him out of semi-obscurity after spending the last 14 years taking a back seat to John J. Sweeney, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s president. But now Mr. Trumka, a former coal miner and fierce critic of corporate America, is running all out to succeed Mr. Sweeney, who is retiring, as president of the nation’s main labor federation.

Expected to win easily, Mr. Trumka would bring a more combative style to running the federation at a time when organized labor seems to be growing weaker in the nation’s workplaces but stronger in Washington.

With union leaders desperate to stop labor’s long decline, many are hoping Mr. Trumka will figure out a way to raise labor’s energy, profile and numbers. At the same time, some union leaders worry that Mr. Trumka will be a polarizing figure who might not be adept at building consensus among the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s 56 unions, a crucial step in moving it forward.

If elected — and he may well run unopposed — Mr. Trumka, 59, would bring the tough guy image he developed in his 13 years as president of the United Mine Workers. In that position, he led long, successful strikes against Pittston and other coal companies, often persuading hundreds of miners to block roads to pressure the companies.

In 1989, he led a 10-month walkout by 1,700 miners in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky after Pittston moved to cut health benefits to disabled and retired miners. During that strike, there were 3,000 arrests of miners and their allies.

In his speeches, Mr. Trumka often accuses companies of squeezing their workers and lashes out at outsourcing and free trade.

Photo

Mr. Trumka with John J. Sweeney, the current A.F.L.-C.I.O. president, at a rally in Chicago.Credit
Sally Ryan for The New York Times

“For 30 years corporate America has really dominated the political scene, and it’s hurt this country,” he said. “Somewhere along the line, their interests began to diverge from the interests of the country. Multinationals do what they think is best for them even if it’s not in the interests of the country. One of our main objectives is to realign the interests of corporations with the interests of the nation.”

While Mr. Trumka sometimes felt invisible the last 14 years —“I was a good soldier,” he says — he takes credit for creating and overseeing labor’s effort to use union pension funds to press companies over executive pay and many other issues.

If Mr. Trumka is elected at the federation’s convention in September, he would become the main voice and face of American labor. With his Polish ancestry, heavy mustache, brawny frame and dynamic, earthy speaking style, he has been compared with Lech Walesa, the leader of Poland’s Solidarity movement.

Mr. Trumka went to work in the mines at 19, sometimes alternating several months below ground and several months in school. He graduated from Pennsylvania State and received a law degree from Villanova.

His office is filled with memorabilia — his and his father’s mining helmets, pictures of his son playing football at Cornell and several professional football buddies. His top-floor office faces the White House, just across Lafayette Square.

“He represents old labor,” said Gary N. Chaison, a labor relations professor at Clark University. “I think he will be a real different type of leader. He has more fire in the belly.”

His us-against-them style, Mr. Chaison said, could make it harder to attract the white-collar and young workers labor is wooing.

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Mr. Trumka hopes to beef up organizing activities, mobilize labor’s grass roots, attract young workers and ally labor with low-wage workers — things Mr. Sweeney also sought to do. Like Mr. Sweeney he vows to do his utmost to enact the “card check” bill to make unionizing easier.

Later this month he will speak to the N.A.A.C.P., hoping to forge a partnership to help low-wage African-American workers.

“I don’t think we can reach these low-wage workers unless we build these partnerships so that we have entree into their community,” Mr. Trumka said. “My overall goal is to speak for all workers, young and old, union and nonunion, and give them a voice.”

Photo

Richard Trumka in his office at the A.F.L.-C.I.O. in front of a picture of Mary Harris Jones, an early labor leader.Credit
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Business groups voice concern about Mr. Trumka. “He’s obviously going to be very aggressive,” said Randel K. Johnson, senior vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits at the United States Chamber of Commerce. “I think it will be more of the same we saw under Sweeney, which was a demonization of the employer community to drive up membership.”

Mr. Trumka has been meeting with many union presidents to seek their endorsements. Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, played a pivotal role behind Mr. Sweeney’s ascension in 1995, and he has endorsed Mr. Trumka.

“Rich has a great deal of experience,” Mr. McEntee said. “He will be more forceful, more aggressive. He knows the inner workings of labor. He’s the best equipped for the job.”

Inside A.F.L.-C.I.O. headquarters, many praise Mr. Trumka’s fire and dedication to workers, but some wonder whether he is right for the job.

“People are asking whether Rich can be an effective organization leader, as opposed to an effective speechmaker and whether he can lead the movement in a broad statesmanlike fashion rather than a narrow, provincial fashion,” said one official who insisted on anonymity, not wanting to upset one of his bosses.

Some union leaders say Mr. Trumka’s candidacy may impede the months of efforts to reunify the labor movement. The service employees, the Teamsters and five other unions quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O. to form a rival federation in 2005.

James P. Hoffa, the Teamsters’ president, has been angry at Mr. Trumka since Mr. Trumka backed his opponent, Ron Carey, in a 1996 race for the Teamsters’ presidency.

“I know the Teamsters have some ill will toward Rich, but hopefully we can put that behind us,” said Leo W. Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers.